The Lone, Red Mountain
by A Middling Writer
Summary: Something old and forgotten lies amidst ancient ruins deep in the sparseness of the Red Waste. Daenerys stumbles upon dwarven legends and awakens a creature of the old world. The world trembles and paradigms shatter in their wake. Lord of the Rings/Hobbit Crossover
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **The following is a non-profit work of fiction. The author does not own nor claims ownership of _The Lord of the Rings _and _ A Song of Ice and Fire_ and their associated franchises. They belong to George R.R. Martin and J.R.R. Tolkien.

**Danaerys I**

* * *

The landscape was a sprawling, red desert. The sun a constant oppressive presence. Dunes and mountains were all that greeted their eyes for leagues. Nary a plant was to be seen, nor trees nor foliage - there were only the mountains on the edge of their sight that seemed like walls reaching towards the sky.

They did not have much food and their rations were getting stricter and stricter. Two horses were already lost to the heat. They would lose the rest to hunger, or thirst.

They had made camp an hour ago, to hide from the sweltering heat. She could hear Rakharo and Jorah speaking in the background. _They are already so loyal to me, staying through this desolate wasteland_. Danaerys tried to find hope in the thought, yet found only despair._ I wonder how long that loyalty will last, if they find out I've killed their Khal. And even if they don't, before long I'll lead them to their deaths too._

She had found solace in ruling from Drogo's side, but now, she had no one to turn to, she was solely responsible for their lives. _I'm not Viserys, or Drogo, or Rhaegar. I don't know how to lead._

Her thoughts had led her to her children. She held meat over a fire, slowly letting it cook. Smelling it, they began vying for her attention, fitting their little mouths in between the bars of the wooden cage. _Thank the gods they can't breathe fire yet, or else they'd have burned the cage by now. _

She held the cooked meat over the fire, and then let it drop into the cage. Viserion and Rhaegal caught it in their mouths, but Drogon, the largest of them pushed his siblings out of the way and ripped off a large chunk and began to eat.

Footsteps grew louder behind her, she turned around. Jorah stood there. He looked warily at the dragons before speaking, "Khaleesi, we are packing the camp, we will be leaving soon"

"I will join you once the Dragons have eaten"

He nodded and left. She turned back to the dragons; they had already finished. _They are growing fast, my children. Soon, I will ride upon them and take back the Seven Kingdoms._

* * *

She saddled her horse, and got onto it, she had grown used to managing without help. Irri and Jhiqqui rode behind.

Time spent moving was a dull monotony, with only the sound of hooves upon gravel for company, no one was willing to spend the energy to speak. As time passed colours of shapes in the distance started clearing, and the Mountain's features started to become visible.

The Mountain before them stood apart from all the others in the Red Waste. Jorah had told her they called it the 'Lonely Mountain' for some tales long forgotten. As they grew closer, she could see that the rock might have been black, once. She could imagine snow upon its peak but none lay there. Most strange of all that she saw were the ruins in the distance of what might have been a city, which stood before large stone gates.

_We might find animals, or at least something stored there. I might finally eat something besides salted horse meat. _They were all tired and hungry now, with the food running low. She made her decision. She slowed her horse to meet with Jorah, "We are going to leave for the ruins, the ones by the side of the mountain"

Jorah had simply nodded and told them her message. Irri and Jhiqqui tried to dissuade her later, when they made camp.

"We should not go Khaleesi, such cities are haunted," they had said fearfully. "It is known." But Danaerys was adamant. There was something in the ruins. She could feel it. She ignored them and they set off.

More time passes, more silence, more uncomfortable thoughts, and more hooves. _We need to reach soon, else at this rate I'll be mad before long._

The closer they made towards the ruins, the more she could feel the presence calling towards her, almost reaching for her. It was almost familiar, yet she could not place it. It was un-easing and comforting at the same time. She could see that she was the only one who felt what she did.

When the second day came to pass and they were about to set off again, Irri had run to her in haste. Tears were welling up in her eyes and Danaerys opened her mouth to speak but saw her clutching a bloody hand. The Dragons had bit her. _They are more ferocious every day. _She had a small smile on her face.

Irri looked at her strangely, as if she was hurt and Danaerys caught herself. She called for Jorah to help patch her wound.

By the third day, her dragons had grown more and more dangerous to all but her. Her presence was all that could calm them when they would start snapping at the others. The largest of them, Drogon had almost grown large enough that he would be able to fly by himself, Jorah had told her. Irri's hand had gotten infected. The fever took her soon after.

They made camp again, a quiet solemnity to the group. Irri was a slave, she did not receive Dothraki honours, and they couldn't afford to stay and dig a grave. And so, her body lay there rotting away from camp.

Sleep did not come easy. Her night was filled with dreams.

* * *

_She was flying over a forest, the Pines moving violently from the force. City walls in the distance were getting ever closer and closer every moment. The flags were blowing away from her, and she could hear the sound of panic, the city noticing her presence. Bells were ringing, and soldiers were being called to battle. _

_Arrows flew at her, but all were stopped by her armour. She opened her mouth and she let loose stream of fire at them. The sound of screams filled the air. _

_She laughed, her voice cold and cruel as her mass crashed into the gates of the fortress, shattering them. Another stream left from her chest, fire filling the hallways. They were burned again, and again, until their charred corpses blocked their escape. They were all fleeing now, and she took the chance, she snatched scores of them in her jaws and feasted. She had won her prize. The gold was hers, now. _

_She leaped into the mountains of gold coins and ornaments stacked upon each other, sending the, flying. Satisfied with her prize, she dove into it once more and lay to rest._

* * *

She woke with a start, the world coming back into view. _What was that? _Her body was covered in a sheen of sweat. The cloth below her was damp. She could see the night sky through the flaps of her tent, the stars glittering like jewels.

She could hear screeching. _The dragons are awake, did they dream what I did?_ She stepped out of her tent, careful not to disturb anything that lay on the ground. Her feet carried her to the cages where the dragons lay.

The noises stopped when she came into her sight. She smiled. _They just needed their mother, just like children. _She sat next to them on the grounds.

She began to speak to them softly, "You are going to grow, my children. You will continue to eat and grow until you are large enough, and then I will ride you into battle and we will burn our enemies" and then she began to tell them stories – stories that Viserys once told her. She spoke to them about Aegon and his sister-wives. She spoke to them about the Black Dread, and of the conquest. And unbeknownst to her at the time, one other was listening.

_It will be dawning soon, _she dimly realised. She got up, with her head still brimming with stories of dragons. _Only one more day of riding. It will be sometime until the others wake up. _She walked to the campfire, the fire had fizzled out in the night. She sat down in front of it. She stared into it, watching the last embers still left among the small piles of ash as they rose up into the air. Ash was pushed aside as she put her hand into the remaining flames, and left it there.

She took it out and stared at it, unmarked. _The Unburnt, and the Mother of Dragons. Lovely titles. _A sound from behind interrupted her. Getting up, she briefly contemplated if she could survive dragonfire. _It is just like normal fire, isn't it? _

The camp had been mostly disassembled, except where she sat. _I'll get the mare then. _With tired practice, the mare was saddled. Danaerys stopped to look at her callused hands. She was used to having to work now. Her thoughts went to the house with the red door. _I always thought of that ad my home, but now, I am going to go to my real home: Kings Landing, Dragonstone and all of the Seven Kingdoms,_

They set off early, hoping to make good time and reach before their supplies ran out. They kept a brisker pace, and stopped less frequently. The sun rose behind them as they rode, the sky painted a mix of blue and orange hues. When she looked back, she could imagine that the Dothraki Sea lay in that direction. For the first time since the birth of her dragons, she could hope.

_City walls are much more formidable up close, _she thought as they passed through where a gate may have been, once. Ruined houses were on either side as they went through the main road. Danaerys could spot soot in some of the ruins. _The army that sieged must have been formidable, _she noted. _And brutal. _The sound of something being smashed rang through the air. Turning down, she gasped. The horse had stepped on a small skeleton, Danaerys could hear Jorah whisper to himself. "Oh gods"

And then she saw the others. Littering the street further down were more small corpses, black with soot, having been burned alive. She felt an eerie familiarity with this forgotten city. The horses bolted next, Danaerys fell off of hers, and looked up on time to see Jorah get trampled by his own as it _galloped_ away. Blood sprayed from his skull, his insides spread onto the skeleton to his side, and then Rakharo swore in Dothraki, "Even the horses can't stay in this haunted city! And now the Andal is dead. I am not staying with you mad woman!", he grabbed Jhiqqui by the arm, shouting something at Jhoqo, and they left, chasing after the horses. Danaerys felt a tightening in her chest, hurt. _I suppose I was right, their loyalty wasn't worth so much after all. _A thought occurs to her, she snaps her head to the side, eyes frantically scanning the area. Finally, she spotted what she was looking for.

The dragon's cages had been knocked over in the chaos. One of the wooden latches had been opened, another had broken in two, splinters littering where it would have landed. She hurried to open the last of the latches, and hefted open the cage. Drogon pushed his way out first, stumbling over the remains, quickly followed by the others. She had clenched her fist, and sat on the cage, shaken.

She watched the sun move across the sky, watching the last remnants od dawn fade, and then watching the day pass into night as the sun set.

She looked down. The dragons had licked the blood off her hands. _I need to get to shelter. I need food. _The presence in the mountain had seemed almost overwhelming, before. Now it was her anchor to the city. _Inside. I need to go inside the mountain. I will find something there. _A detached, tired feeling took hold of her, leading her to the battered, ruined gates.

Rubble remained form when _**her mass crashed into the gates of the fortress, shattering them.**_ She took a hold of one of the pieces of rubble and hefted herself up ,repeating the process until she was inside the halls. _These are the halls form my dreams. _Another realisation hit her, _And the feeling must also come from here. Just what is in this fortress? _A sharp pain came from her side, she was injured, tired and hungry._ I can deal with that come morning. I need to rest._

She could her dragons flap their wings and they flew over the rubble after her. Ducking into a hallway to the side, she lay there on the floor, the dragons curling up beside her and she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

**Author's Note: **And there's that. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The following is a non-profit work of fiction. The author does not own nor claims ownership of _The Lord of the Rings_ and _A Song of Ice and Fire_ and their associated franchises. They belong _to George R.R. Martin_ and _J.R.R. Tolkien_.

**Daenerys II**

* * *

**_D_**aenerys climbed the steps slowly, trying not to think of the events of the past day. Her dragons padded silently behind her. Outside sand rose and fell, crashing against the walls of the ancient stone fortress as it likely had for a thousand years, and would for a thousand more but inside the thick stone walls it was still cold and quiet. Too quiet for Daenerys's liking.

She reached the large stone gates that lay at the centre of the stone fortress. The vibrancy these gates must have held was long gone, but the jewels embedded into the stone glittered splendidly under the light of the torch Daenerys wielded. She grunted and heaved against the door, but to no avail. She fingered the faded runes and symbols carved onto the door. Her hands roamed the surface of the gate, lost, _searching_ for a handle, a clasp, something to heave the door open and lay bare the secrets that lay within.

The torch in her hand was a blur, moving side to side, and she moved with it, eyes moving. Daenerys raised the torch in her hand, and found it. Old and green and weathered, the massive handles lay just above her reach with her hand. She lay down her torch on the ground and jumped with all her strength, arms outstretched and _heaved_.

Daenerys did not remember falling, yet the next she knew she was sprawled on her back on the cold floor. Her head was ringing. The gate was open, and a red light filled the hall. She could see the hall as it might have looked as it burned, dark and foreboding with gems shining, and in their reflections, she could see the short hairy men screaming as fire came in as a water would in a flood. She could see their silhouettes, black right as they disappeared under a torrent of fire. She could almost hear their screams right until the moment they cut out and the bellows and crackling of fire took their place. Daenerys did not know what they had done to deserve this, but their sins must have been truly horrendous, for Justice to be so cruel. Daenerys shook herself from her thoughts as she rose and looked at the vast hall that lay before her.

The Presence she had been feeling all this while was there. She could feel it in her heart of hearts. And so, she stepped forth and _saw_…

There he lay, a vast red-golden dragon, fast asleep; a thrumming came from his jaws and nostrils, and wisps of smoke, but his fires were low in slumber. Beneath him, under all his limbs and his huge coiled tail, and about him on all sides stretching away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of precious things, gold wrought and unwrought, gems and jewels, and silver red-stained in the ruddy light.

Drogon and Viserion and Rhaegal cried out in fear, and Daenerys could not find it in herself to blame them. Before she had thought for Viserys and herself to be the last of the dragons but then he had died. She could remember what she had thought as she saw him writhing in pain on the ground, _He was no dragon. Fire cannot kill a dragon._ And then her children were born and she bore her Targaryen name with pride for the first time, and found her legacy. The legacy of fear.

But now, gazing upon a dragon whose vastness far outstripped the size of any stories Daenerys heard in her childhood, she understood. She understood the singing in her blood as she gazed upon the grand beast. She understood the fear that had united the Seven Kingdoms. She understood the fear that forged the greatest empire the world has ever seen. She understood the awe her _kos_ felt as she woke dragons from stone.

And lastly, as the dragon's eyes flew open and glared at her with frightening intensity, she knew _fear_.

The dragon rose with a roar that sent gold flying. Daenerys had to cover herself with her arms to stop the gold from hurting her. The dragon stood at its full height now, and it easily towered over her and its attention was solely focused upon her. Strangest of all was when the dragon looked at Daenerys and _spoke_.

_"And who are you that dares to trespass on the property of Smaug the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities?"_

Daenerys found herself too shocked to speak but that did not deter the dragon. _"Are you hear to steal something from me as well? You wouldn't be the first."_ The dragon laughed, a cruel and ugly thing. _"Many have tried to steal from me. I imagine you've stepped over their corpses, or perhaps not even that. I can tell that I have been sleeping for quite some time."_

The dragon lost its earlier amusement as quick as it came. Daenerys held her breath. The air was different, stale and somehow cold against her skin. She stared at the large eye before her lost in its depths. The darkness and fury that lay behind the dark slit. She was reminded of the screams she saw in the reflections of the gems.

_"So then, my little thief. Name thyself."_

Daenerys woke from her trance, "I am Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea and _rightful_ ruler of the Seven Kingdoms"

This incensed the dragon,_ "So many titles… You remind me of another _rightful_ ruler who sought to take what was mine. Yet how curious is it that none of your titles explain the hatchlings that cling at your skirts. Nor do they explain why you have brought them here. To challenge me perhaps?"_ The dragons tail moved, quick as a whip and smashed against a stone pillar.

The idea was laughable. The dragon was several times larger than the bones she had found in the Red Waste. Jorah had told her of the dragon skulls that her father had kept in the Red Keep. Of how they were all put there side to side, each larger than the last. And the largest of them belonged to the dragon known as the Black Dread. A man on horseback could ride into those jaws and never come out. Drogo and his _kos_ could all ride into this dragons' jaws and there would still be space left for more. Whereas her dragons were small, freshly hatched and did not possess whatever sorcery that let this one speak.

She said as much.

The looked at her curiously, its previous anger forgotten, _"Tell me of these dragons, thief. I am quite generous, tell me what I want and you may leave with your life"_

Daenerys told him what he wanted. She told him of the dragonlords and of the Freehold. She told him of the greatest empire that the world had ever seen. She told him of the Doom. She told him of Aegon's conquest. She told him of the Dance of the Dragons and the death of the dragons. She told him about the Rebellion and the Lords of Westeros. She told him of the wealth of Casterly Rock and the mighty castle of Storm's End. She told him of Winterfell and Riverrun. She told him that the world had forgotten the dragons. She told him of how dragons were considered to be a children's tale. She told him of how she stepped into a funeral pyre and the night was alive with the music of dragons for the first time in over a hundred years.

By the time she had finished, the dragon was oddly still. Its eyes stared at her unblinkingly until her palms began to sweat.

_"And you, blood of the dragon. You can feel this bond between us, can you not? You can feel your blood singing, begging for our bond to be completed. You thirst for vengeance against those who have wronged you. These golden Lannisters, and Starks, and Baratheons. I am Smaug, child. I am a dragon of the Third Age, and I thirst for gold and blood. All that I shall reap from these curs who turned upon the dragon. I shall burn all those who mock the dragon and make a hoard that shall be the envy of all those who live and breathe. I shall wring a path so glorious and calamitous that history shall never forget me!"_

Smaug roared, and something primal within her roared with Him.

"I, Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen do accept your pledge. I shall deliver all that was promised and _more!_"

Daenerys could not help but smile, _I am going home._

With a mighty flap of His wings, Smaug rose, grabbing her and the hatchlings in his claws as he broke through the stone fortress and glided through the skies once more.

* * *

**Author's Note:** That took a surprisingly long time to write. I spent months agonising over writing this and ended up writing this in a single day. Anyways, how did you find the chapter? Was it good? Bad? Average? I'd love to hear your thought and criticisms. Thanks for reading.

**A Middling Writer**


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